(no subject)
“I can fly really,” the floppy-haired man protested, near-pouting.
“Sure ye can, pup,” Claude agreed easily with an amused look. “Just like them pigs over there.” He rolled his eyes.
“I’m serious!” Peter screamed, suddenly irate; clenching his fists at his side. “I flew… with my brother, Nathan.”
Claude believed him, he really did, but frustration loomed as flying became the one focus of their day. He had thrown Peter off buildings, hit him with sticks, called him ‘poodle’, and still-nothing, no extraordinary, supersonic flight for Peter Petrelli, not even a hover. He sighed in a put upon manner, glaring at his student. Watch this be the ability that blows up the city, he thought cynically.
Peter watched the expressions change on his mentor’s face, anger dissolving. Claude really was trying to help him-he should stop being such a brat. He stepped up behind the older man, who was peering off the edge of the building, and placed a hand on his shoulder.
The invisible man shrugged it off, but it wasn’t violent-just uncomfortable. He offered a wan smile, even. His eyes moved over Peter to the pigeons. His pigeons. Claude had a very strange idea, but thought idly that with Peter, who was in fact a very strange individual, it just might work.
He walked over to the pigeon-cage with an odd nuance in his step. Peter watched boredly, wondering how he would prove that he was not useless to Claude. His eyes widened as Claude stumbled back over to him; birds perched on every available part of the lumbering man.
“Claude,” Peter started, an inkling of suspicion clouding his tone. “What are you doing?”
“These pigeons are avid flyers, Pete,” the older man said smugly, extending a pigeon-ridden arm. “They can show ye how.”
Claude’s smugness scared Peter, a lot.
The bearded man threw his arms up, and all of the pigeons flew up in an arc, cooing wildly.
“Your turn, Pete,” Claude said cheerfully, nudging him towards the edge of the building. Peter glared at him, but tried to do as told, focusing on Nathan. When that only served to bring forth memories and instil pain in his heart, he stopped; took a different approach.
And realized he was hovering a good three feet off the ground.